Abstract

Abstract This paper provides an assessment of the themes and approaches that are emerging in the field of business history. It starts with an overview of the most important developments, themes and characteristics of the discipline from its earliest days into the 1990s. It then explores intellectual, social and economic trends which, since the 1980s, have influenced the direction of business history as a profession and discipline. Finally, it analyses likely future topics, approaches and bases for cooperation with other disciplines, not least owing to prevailing theories in the social sciences which are dependent on business historiography. In this environment, business history can flourish as a discipline as long as business historians keep in mind that they can maintain an independent identity and make a positive scholarly contribution only to the extent that they remain true historians who pursue inquiry independently.

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